1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a detachable marker device adapted to engage a prayer strand that is used for counting a sequence of prayers, wherein the strand has a plurality of nodes positioned on a cord or chain, each node representing a prayer to be prayed. More specifically, the present invention relates to an improved device for use with a prayer strand for marking and maintaining a user's position thereupon.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The use of prayer strands for assisting a votary to track the prayers he has been reciting during his prayer devotion has been well-known in many religions, especially with the Catholic and Muslim religions. Although the configuration of the prayer strands may differ between religions, all such prayer strands have a common construction comprising a resilient cord or ornamental chain that is provided with a series of spaced nodules or nodes. The nodes are most often in the form of plastic or wooden beads that are attached to the cord and the number of nodes on the prayer strand represents a specific number of prayers to be contemplated.
In the Catholic religion, the prayer strand is called a rosary, and it represents a series of repetitious prayers that are recited during meditation upon particular mysteries of the Life of Jesus Christ and with devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who acts as an intercessory on behalf of the votary. The rosary in its basic sense comprises five groups of ten beads, each group being separated by a stand-alone bead. The ten beads, referred to as a decade, represent ten repetitions of the Hail Mary prayer while the stand alone bead represents the Our Father prayer. During recitation of each series of prayers within a particular group, the votary meditates upon specific events that the Catholic church has specified as best depicting the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries of the life of Jesus, known as the Mysteries of Redemption. Recitation of a full rosary represents recitation and mediation of the five groups of prayers under each of the four groups of mysteries. During the recitation of each prayer, it is common for the votary to continuously pinch and roll the particular bead between his index finger and thumb, moving from bead to bead along the rosary. As one might appreciate, there are a large number of prayers being recited during the course of a votary praying the rosary. Therefore, it is desirable to diligently keep track of any particular prayer that is being contemplated within one of the five groups of prayers. Also, one may intentionally pray only a certain number of decades at a time due to personal time constraints.
Various apparatuses and devices have been devised to personally assist a votary in keeping track of the prayers being recited because many times, he is interrupted during his devotional exercise. After the interruption, it is desirable to return to the exact prayer location on the rosary so that when prayer is resumed, the votary will not have to prolong his devotion by starting over or repeating prayers. One device is the rosary prayer marker presented by Frederick Belfied in U.S. Pat. No. 2,937,459. That device comprises a hollow one-piece body of a generally cylindrical configuration. The body is provided with a longitudinal slit that extends from one end of the body to the other. A user of the device forces the cord through the slit, thereby slipping the marker on the rosary strand. A series of flexible webs are positioned within the interior of the hollow body, each web extending radially inward. Each web has a curved end and the collective formation of the curved ends forms a circle for the rosary bead to be pulled through. A user advances the marker from bead-to-bead as the series of prayers are being recited, thereby helping the votary track his progress of devotion. However, it has been discovered that this particular device has shortfalls that limit its use. For example, the slit provided in the wall of the marker body has been found unacceptable for use with rosaries that substitute a decorative chain for the strand cord, as the slit will not accommodate chain. If the slit is made larger to accommodate chains, the marker has a tendency to fall off rosaries made with cording. Another shortfall of this device is that in order for the marker to remain attached to a rosary bead, the user must position the marker in a way that the rosary bead remains in simultaneous and continuous contact with each of the flexible webs. Because of the flexible nature of each web, it is almost impossible to position a rosary bead such that it is frictionally maintained in place in a simultaneous fashion within each of the webs. If a bead is not positioned correctly as described, the marker has a tendency to fall off the bead, defeating the purpose of the marker. A further disadvantage of this device is that over time and use, the integrity of each web disintegrates, causing acceleration of the above-mentioned problem.
Another rosary marker device was presented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,179,621 to Vaccari. This device uses a decorative alligator clip to mark the rosary bead the votary is contemplating. This device has a greater propensity to stay in place on the bead when compared to the Belfied marker, but it too has several shortcomings that make its use unacceptable. For instance, the teeth of the alligator clip are very sharp, causing them to damage the beads of the rosary. Furthermore, moving the clip from bead-to-bead becomes very cumbersome and time consuming, thereby becoming a detraction to the user's prayer devotion. The cumbersome nature of this marker device becomes even more evident when used by older people who have arthritis in their fingers or hands and who find squeezing of the clip arms together for movement to be extremely overburdening. Therefore, there is still a long felt need to provide a mechanical rosary marker device that is adaptable to various types of rosaries, is simple to advance and which easily captures and holds the beads of the rosary.